If I have anything resembling a strong opinion in this area it's that convenience should never be gated. I can respect the view that flying shouldn't be possible in Pandaria because you actually enjoy the game less with it. I disagree but that's fine - it is a polarising subject.

But if you take the view that flying is an improvement, don't withhold it from anyone. To motivate players to keep playing by dangling a less inconvenient way of playing in front of them is awful design. I've taken many breaks from wow and the first was when, many years ago, I realised how much I hated levelling through the thirties only so I could continue levelling in a slightly (very slightly) less painful way at 40 (at least I didn't have to farm gold for my alts).

Cool-looking mounts and armour and other prestige items should be hard to obtain. I'm completely in favour of having players' achievements stand out (e.g. real legendaries that look badass from a mile away, full tier gear being a rarity, LFR dropping blues with inferior visuals compared to raids). But convenience and quality of life items should be baseline for everyone. So 10k gold is way too much. Flying generally is too expensive - making a new player (they exist, albeit not on these forums) save up for 280% flying is wanton cruelty. Master flying should cost about 1k and then 100g per expansion. The game absolutely needs gold sinks. BMAH is a move in the right direction - making convenience items like transportation, storage etc a gold sink is very outdated thinking imo.

10k isn't much though it can build up pending on how many alts there are, I wouldn't personally.. I enjoy my ground mounts and you spent the majority of your time on the ground fighting mobs while leveling anyhow.

10k is nothing, and since people are so lazy as to waste time whining instead of actually going around leveling, I suggest increasing that amount to something more substantial, like 300,000k and making it account wide. THEN we'd see you babies whine wouldn't we?

Originally Posted by melodramocracy

Gold and the 'need' for it in-game is easily one of the most overblown mindsets in this community.

It's not just about the gold sink. Have you ignored every blue post on the subject?

---------- Post added 2013-01-19 at 11:25 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Fortune Cookie

If I have anything resembling a strong opinion in this area it's that convenience should never be gated. I can respect the view that flying shouldn't be possible in Pandaria because you actually enjoy the game less with it. I disagree but that's fine - it is a polarising subject.

But if you take the view that flying is an improvement, don't withhold it from anyone. To motivate players to keep playing by dangling a less inconvenient way of playing in front of them is awful design. I've taken many breaks from wow and the first was when, many years ago, I realised how much I hated levelling through the thirties only so I could continue levelling in a slightly (very slightly) less painful way at 40 (at least I didn't have to farm gold for my alts).

Cool-looking mounts and armour and other prestige items should be hard to obtain. I'm completely in favour of having players' achievements stand out (e.g. real legendaries that look badass from a mile away, full tier gear being a rarity, LFR dropping blues with inferior visuals compared to raids). But convenience and quality of life items should be baseline for everyone. So 10k gold is way too much. Flying generally is too expensive - making a new player (they exist, albeit not on these forums) save up for 280% flying is wanton cruelty. Master flying should cost about 1k and then 100g per expansion. The game absolutely needs gold sinks. BMAH is a move in the right direction - making convenience items like transportation, storage etc a gold sink is very outdated thinking imo.

Flying isn't really a way to improve yourself in the game. It's a vanity item that you don't need to move on.

I would buy it if it was added, because it makes levelling much faster. But I don't think it should, because it trivialises the questing experience. The quests were designed for ground mount, you now get quest continuation where you stand, you get transportation help between areas. Simply, the questing experience is fine as it is.

Thats all fine and good, but some people believe other wise. Some people think that after hitting 90 on one, or maybe two or more toons doing it by ground mount questing, they would like the luxury of being able to take their next alt through panda land on a flying mount.

How does this hurt anyone? Really, I would like someone to intelligently explain that to me.

You're 100% right! I've decided the entire levelling process should also be optional. Want to level to 90? Up to you. Don't feel like levelling to 90? Pay 100k gold to to remove all gear equip requirements. Get carried through a single normal mode dungeon and grats on your being an unhittable 600k DPS beast due to obscene scaling.

Please just stop talking if you don't have anything intelligent to say.

Forcing people not to fly the first time around makes some sense, because it allows them to experience the content as initially intended. However, as of alt 2 it's just wasting players time for no good reason.

Wow wow, hold your horses son. That's slippery slope argument, just because I want to fly on my alt from the start doesnt mean I want "button to get 600k dps" because I feel like "choices are good thing".
Then you say at the end that "However, as of alt 2 it's just wasting players time for no good reason."
I mean what now? Do you want alts to fly while leveling or not? This type of sarcasm and going from point to point doesnt go thro well by typing.

Game has been out for 5 months soon and new (raid-)patch is coming.
If you want the luxury of flying thro hills instead of going around it "by foot" then it seems ok to have BoA tome that allows you to do that. Getting more people to max level "faster" is good.

People take this way way too serious. It happened in wrath so its not new concept. Besides theres not much of "intended" stuff on pandaria for ground only mounts or "flying mounts only". Theres very very few places where you can only fly into and they are 90 daily areas not "amazing leveling hideouts where you can pass 5 levels of content".
Even those few distant islands can be accessed by swimming.
People go around mobs so you dont really "avoid mobs" that much.

So only thing it would add is luxury of fast mount that can fly. Its not like theres zones like Icecrown that are pretty much impossible to level in with ground mount.
And thats ok because they can choose and wont get "huge advantages". Also come on, its not like we are talking "realm first 90 for rich people only!!"

"when women wear makeup they’re basically lying to us"
Well, I don’t see why women are being blamed if man is stupid enough to really think they have red and gold eyelids.